“Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; there will be great earthquakes, and in various places famines and plagues; and there will be dreadful portents and great signs from heaven.” This apocalyptic vision placed in the mouth of Jesus by the writer of the Gospel according to Luke disturbs me.
Over the centuries people have used these words to insist that current events point to the end of the world and Jesus’ triumphant return. Prophets and doomsayers just can’t help pointing to storms, earthquakes, wars and rumours of war and shouting “The end is near!”
Biblical scholars remind us that these apocalyptic sayings attributed to Jesus by the author of Luke were written down long after the Temple in Jerusalem had been destroyed, in an attempt to make some sense out of Rome’s destruction of Jerusalem.
Modern biblical scholars can caution all they like against interpretations that herald future events, but they can’t discourage the doomsayers. Somehow the notion of the end of the world, visions of destruction, wars, plagues, earthquakes, holocausts, hell fire and damnation remain more vivid in our imaginations than visions of the new heavens and a new earth that sustained the authors of the New Testament.
If someone believes that there is no way for God’s promised re-creation to come about than through the holocaust of some cosmic Armageddon, then why should we resist the horror? Why not hasten its coming? If we believe that the cosmic Armageddon is near, our mindset, attitudes and the way we do things will change. Why bother about climate change, poverty, genocide and injustice? Why participate in protest? After all the end is near, let it pass.
However, in the words of Isaiah, God is re-creating now, in the present, and God is re-creating through us. There is hope.
God declares: “I am about to create new heavens and a new earth; the former things shall not be remembered or come to mind…be glad and rejoice forever in what I am creating…I will rejoice and delight in my people; no more shall the sound of weeping be heard, or the cry of distress. A reminder that the LOVE we call God goes about the business of re-creating by engaging us in the work of creation.
Written some ten to twenty years after the Romans destroyed the Temple in Jerusalem, the gospel-writer’s audience were searching for answers. Who was this Jesus that we believed to be the Messiah, the new King David, sent to save us from our oppressors? Why did he die? Are the rumours that he lives on true? What about those who believe he will return? Who was Jesus, what did he teach, why did God let him die? Who will save us from the Romans? Why did God allow the Temple to be destroyed? Did Jesus know this would happen? What does it mean? How are we supposed to live our lives now? The Romans are killing hundreds and hundreds of us. Where is God in all of this? The Temple, everything we knew and held dear lies in ruins. What are we to do?
They’d built their hopes and dreams around the temple and the image of Jesus as the Messiah, their saviour, themselves as the Chosen ones and God as their liberator, vindicator, the rock upon which they could stand. But the Temple lay in ruins…
What happens when the images and idols we choose to worship fail to capture the full meaning of the One we long for? When our Temples fall. When the Church fails. When theologies are too limiting. When answers seem hollow or absurd. When new realities present themselves. When wisdom opens us up to new possibilities. When our questions go unanswered. Temples fall, idols are smashed, and images, ideas and theologies disappoint.
There are days when it feels like the questions and the mysteries are just too much to bear.
It’s Jesus that keeps me in what’s left of the church. Not the church. In Jesus, I’ve met a human being who knew what it was to wander around in the questions; a Jewish rabbi, a teacher, skilled in the art of answering a question with a question. Jesus who cried out for justice and empowered the marginalized. Jesus who embraced his own humanity and lived fully, loved recklessly and gave himself fully to life, it’s Jesus that keeps me in the faith. Jesus who challenged the status quo of the religious authorities and insisted that we and God are ONE. Jesus who put people ahead of the law. Jesus who called and empowered people to resist injustice and yet refused to take up arms even though hundreds and perhaps thousands would have followed him all the way to Rome to fight if he’d only asked them to. Jesus who loved so fully that he refused to back down even though he knew that in all likelihood it would get him killed. Jesus who insisted that heaven is here on earth. Jesus who declared that the reign of God has begun. Jesus who reduced it all down to love, love of God and love of our neighbour as we love ourselves. Jesus who insisted that our minds be part of any relationship. Jesus the rule-breaker and party-goer, the one they called a drunkard and a glutton. Jesus who lived so fully and loved so greatly that in him we can still see the face of God.
Jesus whose life and witness was so powerful that when he died that horrible crushing death, it was as if the very curtain in the Temple was torn in two and the holy of holies was revealed for what it was, not nearly holy enough to contain the Source of our Being.
The Temple was too small; God was not there. Like the smallness of the temple our images, theologies, doctrines and dogmas, are too small, to contain the ONE who is the very source of our being. The religious trappings are just that, trappings, they cannot contain the DIVINE ONE who lies at the heart of reality. Our images and idols have been smashed by our questions, and we can wander around in the ruins as they decay, or we can look for the ONE who lives and breathes in, with, and through us in the faces of those around us; the ONE who lies beyond us in universes that stretch beyond our comprehension.
Today, nation rises against nation. Earthquakes, fires, floods, famine, poverty, as oceans rise. Superbugs threaten super-plagues, and people are looking to the heavens not for portents or signs but for escape routes from disasters of our own making. Our temples have been destroyed. Our idols and images are scattered amongst the ruins. So, let them rot, let them decay. For in rot and decay, lies the nourishment for new life. In the words of the Prophet Isaiah, we hear our God declare: “I AM about to make a new thing!”
Out of the ruins will rise up a new thing. Resurrection is possible. The MYSTERY that lies at the heart of creation is about to do a new thing. LOVE is nothing if it is not fertile, fecund, fruitful, prolific, bountiful, lavish, ever-evolving, dynamic, growing, rich, beautiful, gracious, extravagant… exciting, dangerous, scary, bold, tempting, sustaining, worth living and dying for.
All those centuries ago, when the Temple in Jerusalem lay smouldering in ruins, the followers of Jesus looked around and realized that Jesus was indeed their Messiah, because in his life and death lay their hope for, in Jesus they saw the power of LOVE. In time they began to see that LOVE born again in the faces of one another as they too began to live and love fully and extravagantly seeking the justice that Jesus sought, empowering the powerless, lifting up the lowly, loving, living and trusting that in God who IS LOVE they would find new life.
Anthem is a song by Leonard Cohen, Canadian songwriter, singer, poet, and novelist. Here are two short extracts:
“The birds they sang
at the break of day
Start again
I heard them say
Don’t dwell on what
has passed away
or what is yet to be…
Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack, a crack in everything
That’s how the light gets in.”
And here we stand, right smack in the middle of a season in which the Gospel and the church are associated with bigotry, racism, sexual assault, climate change denial, and persecution of people based on ancient myths interpreted as facts. We at Aldersgate come from different faith traditions, different walks of life, are of different sexual orientations, some believe and some do not believe. We may not even call ourselves Methodist. I don’t know. But we are all evolving. Call it a sacred transformation. We are becoming the kind of community God intends us to be and we will reflect the attributes of God in the public sphere.
Here we stand, an inclusive, progressive, science loving, historically critical, knowledge loving family that continues to struggle with the teachings of Jesus, refusing to take the Bible literally while trying to take it seriously.
Here we stand, convinced that we can do no other. Opening our arms wide, extending a promise of radical welcome.
“Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack in everything
That’s how the light gets in.”
Ring the bells that still can ring: the bells of justice, the bells of hope, the bells of peace, the bells of joy.
“Forget your perfect offering.”
The cracks are there for all to see. The light shines in. And still we sing. And still we stand. Trusting that every tear will be wiped away. That all shall be well and all manner of things shall be well.
LOVE will turn our mourning into dancing. Here we stand for we can do no other.
“Ring the bells that can still ring.”
The LOVE that is God is the only hope I have to offer you in this strange season that we are in. The LOVE that is God is the best hope that we have to give.
“There is a crack in everything.”
Be that crack. Let the light come in. Ring the bells that can still ring. Be that crack. Let the LOVE come in. BE the LOVE shining in.
”Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack, a crack in everything
That’s how the light gets in.
That’s how the light gets in.
That’s how the light gets in.”
Acknowledgment
Tripp Fuller Podcast: Standing Firm: Bonhoeffer’s Urgent Wisdom for Our Dangerous Times
Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography by John Dominic Crossan
Isaiah by Walter Brueggemann. Westminster John Knox Press